I'm unimpressed with his incredibly poor trigger discipline. Something's likely to get shot by him. Unfortunately, it's most likely going to be an unintentional shooting. What with his finger on the trigger, but he hasn't even shouldered the rifle.

I'm not a huge proponent of firearms, nor do I think it's a good idea for firearms to be so readily available in the States. But as long as we are practically swimming in a sea of unnecessary firearms, I take the position that it's imperative that everyone should take mandatory firearms safety and handling classes as part of elementary and high school curricula. Not everyone is capable of handling firearms, and not everyone should carry firearms, but everyone should at the very least know how to hold a firearm in a safe way and make a hot weapon safe. It's ridiculous how often I see terrible firearms safety practiced in both entertainment media as well as on Youtube where ostensible firearms experts and reviewers handle weapons as if they're damned toys (looking at you FPSRussia).

I'm not a huge proponent of firearms, nor do I think it's a good idea for firearms to be so readily available in the States. But as long as we are practically swimming in a sea of unnecessary firearms, I take the position that it's imperative that everyone should take mandatory firearms safety and handling classes as part of elementary and high school curricula. Not everyone is capable of handling firearms, and not everyone should carry firearms, but everyone should at the very least know how to hold a firearm in a safe way and make a hot weapon safe.

Pragmatism and common sense superseding bombastic ideology? Who let you in here? Don't you know your kind are unwelcome on either side of the guns debate?

It surreal isn't it? Both "sides" of the gun debate (which really is a gun yelling-at-each-other) can agree on what's most important. Namely: Both sides want to reduce the number of people who die because someone(s) shot another someone(s) or with a gun.

What I don't get is, how does adding more guns reduce the likelihood of someone shooting someone else with a gun? I'm pretty sure it doesn't, because pretty much everyone who wants a gun, has at least one gun already, including crazy people with histories of violence and violent mental illness. 2nd ammendment nuts are always saying how gun bans would be pointless because they don't work on small scales, but that's only because small scale bans are very easy to circumvent, and the availability of lethal weaponry has been ubiquitous for everyone for hundreds of years. It's not like an AR-15 rots when properly stored 50 years. It's not like an M1911 goes bad if you don't use it every week.

Adding more guns into the situation just means that people who already have guns get more, and people who don't want guns end up being forced into a situation where they need to have guns because the environment has become unsafe.

On the other hand, if we spent less time worrying about arming the citizenry, and more time training, vetting and carefully monitoring and sousveilling cops, and making sure patrol coverage was adequate, most people wouldn't need guns for self defense at all.